{"id":12731,"date":"2020-04-28T02:46:49","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T06:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/nextdoor-neighbors-help-neighbors-as-your-street-block-goes-online\/"},"modified":"2020-04-28T02:46:49","modified_gmt":"2020-04-28T06:46:49","slug":"nextdoor-neighbors-help-neighbors-as-your-street-block-goes-online","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/nextdoor-neighbors-help-neighbors-as-your-street-block-goes-online\/","title":{"rendered":"NextDoor: Neighbors Help Neighbors as Your Street Block Goes Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nextdoor is a social networking app where users are grouped into their own neighborhoods. Since its founding in 2010 in San Francisco, it has grown to cover 260,000 neighborhoods across 11 countries, expanding into Europe. Similar to its large competitors, it operates a newsfeed and kept membership free. Unlike them, it puts a huge focus on identity verification done by phone or portal mail. Also unlike the incumbents which focus on drawing connections among friends as they move across countries in an increasingly mobile world, Nextdoor is built on proximity and ring-fences content only to one\u2019s neighborhood instead of relying on a popularity algorithm to deal with the increasing volume of content. The team believed in helping neighbors establish a sense of community during a time where people increasingly lost touch with their local communities. They sought to rebuild social fabrics with the use of critical connectors or Founding Members. As a member of a neighborhood, residents had could discover other people and small businesses around them.<\/p>\n

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Neighborhoods\u2019 importance suddenly became evident in early 2020 with the onslaught of COVID-19. As wide-sweeping social distancing policies to contain the virus\u2019 spread increased, day-to-day life restricted itself to people\u2019s immediate surroundings. People that were used to reaching out to further flung social networks suddenly found themselves limited to digital communication, from being unable do one\u2019s regular visit to parents or fly across the country to celebrate milestones. Perhaps for the first time ever, people had to rely on the next-door neighbors they had never needed to meet \u2013 until Nextdoor. As of the last month alone, Nextdoor\u2019s user engagement has increased in 80% especially in Seattle and New York. It has jumped over 100 slots in the App Store. Tennessee\u2019s local officials have use Nextdoor as a primary channel for official communications to constituents.<\/p>\n

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At the start of 2020 and especially in the last month, Nextdoor has built, launched, and heavily publicized several new features that allow residents and businesses to extend help and ask for help.<\/p>\n

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